Tuesday, May 24, 2011

My wife "volunteered" me to cook for all the teachers and staff at my son's grade school (Shout out to the awesome staff at Woodlands Elementary... GO EAGLES!). I've gotten pretty comfortable cooking for family and small groups of friends etc., however a cook this big made me a little nervous! Kelli had all the confidence in the world in me, I wasn't so sure. After all, this was for "Teacher Appreciation Week"... I didn't want the message to be "We appreciate you so much we made you some sub-par BBQ."

Due to the volume of meat needed, I cooked on both my SM020 and my PG1000. I prepped all 4 butts the same with rub and my usual injection. Then cooked them all at 225 for about 15 hours. Then I foiled them and put them in a cooler to keep warm. I pulled them on-site at the school and put the pulled pork in a Nesco cooker with a little more rub and Smokin Okie's Finishing Sauce for some moisture.

I didn't hang around to serve it up, but about 3 hours later there wasn't much in the way of leftovers. I did reserve one of the butts for our family... and it was yummy!

So... my wife "volunteering" me helped me to be more confident in my cooking... I still get nervous cooking for people other than family though...

I've heard of people making "Flinstone Style" beef ribs and them turning out well. These were edible but not great. I cooked these on the PG1000 after doing some basic seasoning. I think my biggest problem was that my pit was running a little on the hot side and I cooked them a little long. All the recs I got for cooking beef ribs was cook them LOW AND SLOW. Low like 200-225. Next time (if there is a next time) I will try a "beefier short rib" or just stick with pork ribs.